1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to processing for setting a driver.
2. Description of the Related Art
To reduce the operational/and or maintenance costs required for a printer or a copying machine, an administrator of a printing system can set an upper limit with respect to a printable page number for each user (e.g., a division in a company or a person belonging to the division). This kind of management includes delivering a customized printer driver to a user's PC. In particular, the printer driver includes default values (i.e., initial set values) of print settings that can be customized for individual users. Distributing a customized printer driver can realize a print control system capable of restricting printing functions allowable for each user.
As an example of this kind of print control system, one server can manage all printer drivers to be installed on each PC in a printing system and can distribute an arbitrary printer driver with arbitrary initial settings to each PC via a network. According to the print control system, an administrator creates driver initialization files beforehand. A driver management server stores and manages the created driver initialization files together with corresponding printer drivers. A printer driver accompanied with its setting file can be distributed to a user's PC. Further, print restrictions (e.g., restrictions relating to the number of printable sheets) may be dynamically changed when print settings are not changed.
In a print system, a user may be charged (or assigned or limited to) restrictions with respect to printing functions. When the user executes a printing operation, the user is required to instruct a printing operation with print settings not violating the restricted printing functions. In particular, if a printing operation is interrupted by the print restrictions caused dynamically, a user has no way to know if the result of print (such as the number of printed sheets) has reached a restriction value and will not understand why the printing operation is suddenly interrupted.
If such dynamical restrictions are recognized as part of predetermined print settings, a user can manually change the print settings to resume the printing operation. However, many users seldom input detailed print settings before starting each printing operation. Instead, usually printing operations are executed without changing default print settings. In many cases, users have no sufficient knowledge about the restrictions charged to individual users.
Multifunctional print restricting systems can set various print restrictions to reduce the cost. However, the multifunctional print restricting systems are difficult to handle for many users, for example, in the operation for inputting or changing the settings as well as in understanding the print restrictions. A heavy burden is placed not only on users but also on system administrators who are in charge of education and instruction.